Heidi Heitkamp

Former Senator, North Dakota

U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp served as the first female senator elected from North Dakota from 2013 to 2019. Throughout her time in public service, Senator Heitkamp has stood up for tribal communities and worked to improve outcomes for Native American children, women and families. The first bill she introduced in the Senate, which became law in 2016, created a Commission on Native Children. Her bill with U.S. Senator John McCain became law to create AMBER Alerts in Indian Country. She introduced Savanna’s Act to help address the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women. And she worked to help address the detrimental impact exposure to trauma can have on children and families – particularly those in Native communities. Senator Heitkamp received a B.A. from the University of North Dakota and a law degree from Lewis and Clark Law School. She lives in Mandan, N.D. with her husband, Dr. Darwin Lange, a family practitioner. They have two children, Ali and Nathan.

The Mission of The McCain Institute at ASU is to advance leadership based on security, economic opportunity, freedom, and human dignity, in the United States and around the world.